Proportionality profiles developed by Taagepera and Laakso have earlier
been used for describing effects of national electoral systems. In this
article we apply these profiles to European parliamentary (EP) elections
of the EU15 from 1979 to 2004. Since the electoral systems of the EP
elections closely resemble the national elections in the respective
countries, same kind of profiles emerge as in the national elections.
Therefore the members of the European parliament are chosen with many
different electoral systems with different effects on the outcome. Six
profiles types were found. Counting method seems to determine the
profile grouping somewhat, but the strongest variables determining the
shape of a countries profile appears to be the average district
magnitude and the number of seats allocated to the country.